I feel like we’re way overdue for glorifying the butthole. Like, there’s nothing wrong with a butthole. I know that a lot of people know that, and embrace their own buttholes, as well as the buttholes of others; some people unabashedly celebrate the butthole. But as a whole, as a society, we aren’t yet fully loving ourselves anally.

In some ways, this ad isn’t even that unrealistic. Sure, there are more appropriate things you could wear on a bike, but anyone who’s ever spent a summer with a bike as their primary form of transportation knows that there are some days when a combination of high temperatures and not giving a fuck result in you biking around wearing as little clothing as possible. The creeps and prudes don’t matter in those moments. Sometimes, it’s just you, the road, the heat, and your butthole in the breeze.

Even models’ buttholes are more photogenic than normal buttholes.

I feel like if her eyes weren’t cropped out of this, it would feel entirely different. Like, maybe they’re predictably blank, fuck-doll eyes, but what if they were wide open, terrified, OMG IT’S RIGHT BEHIND ME eyes? They pretty much had to crop out the eyes so you wouldn’t get distracted from dat ass.

Wait, we are right behind her. Doesn’t this feel like she’s trying to haul ass away from the audience? Are we supposed to assume that she’s looking back in a coy, “hey, follow me, let’s have sexy fun!” way, as opposed to a “Please leave me alone and stop staring at my butthole” way? Isn’t that assumption on the part of the viewer – and the assumption by American Apparel that we would make that assumption – indicative of a really unhealthy sense of entitlement to women’s bodies and the notion that, just by existing and having buttholes, they are implicitly consenting for you to look and follow (and…???) This is getting dark.

“They pretty much had to crop out the eyes so you wouldn’t get distracted from dat ass.” – I think this is a direct quote from the “How To Objectify And Dehumanize The Female Body To Sell Things” handbook.

This is also very body-positive. Possibly rape-positive too. But body-positive for sure. Don’t shame the butthole.

That thong looks really comfortable as far as thongs go and I would like to buy several.

I understand that, ultimately, me writing this is all American Apparel wanted. They weren’t making a statement. They weren’t being exploitative. They just wanted people to write about them and maybe sell some extra thongs as a result. Advertising is less about who you can pay to promote your products and more about what you can do to get people to talk about them for free.